


Unmentionables

by Glisseo



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, some very mild references to sexy times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2018-12-23
Packaged: 2019-09-25 17:56:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17126066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glisseo/pseuds/Glisseo
Summary: Ron and Harry go Christmas shopping, which turns out to be a lot more awkward than either of them could have imagined.





	Unmentionables

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladyknightley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyknightley/gifts).



> Hello, this is very daft. I had various Christmas fic ideas floating around in my mind and this was by far the most ridiculous but it's the one I ended up writing, so there you have it, Happy Christmas one and all!

There was a general and rather grumpy consensus that in London particularly, with each passing year the onset of Christmas became earlier and harder to ignore. This year, November was in its infancy when the Oxford Street lights went on; before too long, almost every shop had a festive display in its windows, and shoppers could hardly move three feet without hearing Mariah Carey claim that she didn't need to hang her stocking there upon the fireplace, thank you very much. Some enterprising (or deluded) shops had started selling cards in August. Wherever you went, it seemed, you were slapped in the face with a holly-jolly reminder that Christmas was indeed coming, like an intemperate gale that blew down all in its wake.  
  
For all that it was meant to be the season of goodwill, the Aurors had found themselves overwhelmed with a surge of petty crime, leaving Harry so buried in paperwork that Father Christmas himself could have marched into the Ministry jingling his bells with a dozen reindeer in tow and Christmas still would have been the furthest thing from his mind. As a result, he had paid little thought to doing any shopping, which might have caused panic later on had his former partner not turned up at the office on a rainy Wednesday lunchtime and kidnapped him.

“It’s not kidnapping if you go willingly,” said Ron, “and I’m doing you a favour!”  
  
Harry supposed this was true in the abstract, but it didn’t feel like much of a favour to be dragged to a busy Muggle shopping street in the middle of the lunch hour rush, not when it was chilly and raining that sort of light mizzly rain that doesn’t seem so bad but actually makes you very damp, and a passing shopper had just nearly taken him out with a roll of wrapping paper. His glasses were already spotted with rain drops, obscuring his vision. He took them off and wiped them rather uselessly on his jacket, which had been his Auror robes before Ron had Transfigured them. It was fortunate for them both (and everyone in Muggle London) that he was wearing trousers underneath.  
  
Without his glasses, the street looked a lot more appealing, lights turning into shimmering blurs and drawing the focus from the red strained faces of shoppers. He put them on again somewhat reluctantly.  
  
“Why Muggle shops?” he asked Ron, following him along the pavement. Ron was peering into shop windows with a furrowed brow. It took Harry a moment to realise that he was perplexed by the mannequins, which were stationary.  
  
“I need to get something for the Grangers, and Hermione was saying she doesn’t have any nice Muggle clothes anymore,” he explained, stopping by one window and - before Harry could stop him - tapping lightly on the glass. “Don’t they move at _all_ , then?” he said, soundly thoroughly baffled by the idea.  
  
“Only at night,” said Harry. “When the Muggles aren’t around. Then they all get together and have a party.”  
  
“Ha, ha.”  
  
“That doesn’t explain why I’m here, anyway. I was going to do my shopping in Diagon Alley.” _When I remembered._ “What can I get here?”  
  
“Ginny wears Muggle clothes,” Ron pointed out. “And there’s Dad - you know what he’s like about Muggle stuff.” This was said with a faintly conspiratorial air, as if Ron himself had not just been thrown by the idea of immobile mannequins. Still, he had a point. Conceding this, Harry let Ron lead the way, entering shops apparently at random and appearing vaguely startled whenever a sales assistant spoke to him. They struck gold in a large department store, where Ron found a soft jumper for Hermione in her favourite shade of blue and Harry a very fluffy dressing gown which he knew Ginny would love. They spent some time wandering the various floors; Harry dithered over the electrical goods before eventually deciding on a CD Walkman for Arthur, knowing full well that he would probably take it apart to see how it worked. Nevertheless, he asked Ron to tell Hermione that she might get some CDs.  
  
“OK,” Ron agreed. “What’s a seedy?”  
  
They lingered a further furtive ten minutes amongst the candles - Harry was particularly enchanted with one that smelled extremely Christmassy, of cinnamon and orange - before making their way back onto the drizzly street.  
  
“I tell you what, that John Lewis knows what he’s doing,” said Ron, wrestling with his shopping bag; the downside of shopping with Muggles was that they couldn’t Charm their purchases lighter or shrink them. “OK, Hermione’s dad likes something called golf, didn’t your uncle - oh, bloody hell.” Something behind Harry had caught his attention; he grabbed Harry’s arm and pulled him to the side. “It’s - no, don’t look - it’s that prat Higginbotham.”  
  
“Who?”  
  
“You know - from the Improper Use of Magic Office? Always sucked up - he just wants people to think we’re friends … he comes by the shop, too. I’d rather run starkers through Diagon Alley than have to talk to him.”  
  
“Go ahead,” said Harry, amused. “What’s stopping you?”  
  
Ron, eyes still fixed on Higginbotham, wasn’t listening. “Ahh, bollocks, he’s coming - quick, he’s not seen us yet -”  
  
He yanked on the arm he was still gripping and Harry found himself suddenly in a different shop, mildly disorientated. He blinked at Ron.  
  
“Was that really necessary?”  
  
“He is a _massive_ prat,” said Ron. “We’re not leaving til he’s gone. Maybe there’s something in here that …”  
  
He trailed off as he took in the shop’s contents. Harry, turning to see why, felt his face redden. It was a fairly large space, and every inch of it was packed with -  
  
“ _Pants_ ,” Ron muttered.  
  
Very lacey and impractical pants, to be precise, Harry thought, looking at the rows and rows of hangers and the mannequins strategically positioned on white cubes, each clad in a different skimpy ensemble. It wasn’t just lace, he noticed; there was velvet and silk and floaty chiffon-y stuff, topped with buttons and bows and ribbons …  
  
He had no idea women’s underwear could be quite so complex. He could see the appeal, though; one of the mannequins was wearing a set in rich purple that looked extremely striking against the white plastic, and all he could see was Ginny, and how it would look with her pale skin and vivid hair … She usually wore rather plain underwear, practical sports-type things, and he had no idea if she’d care for something as intricate as all this, which might be attractive but wouldn’t necessarily be comfortable; most of the knickers seemed to missing crucial parts of the material, and would likely expose a lot of skin -  
  
“Oy,” said a voice very crossly in his ear. “You’d better not be thinking about what you _look_ like you’re thinking about.”  
  
“I’m not,” said Harry quickly, taking a few steps backwards; Ron was shooting him a glare so fierce he was worried it might actually be able to burn through his skull and see into his mind. His ears were scarlet.  
  
Ron didn’t look like he believed him, which was fair. Harry, however, noticed that in between glaring, his eyes kept darting surreptitiously to the racks. Surely he wasn’t thinking of -  
  
Oh Lord. Harry definitely didn’t want to think about that.  
  
A sales assistant with a perky ponytail smiled at them. “Are you interested in anything in particular?”  
  
“No!” they said together, both now turning completely red. “I reckon whatshisface has gone now,” Harry added hastily, desperate to escape the awkwardness that was now almost permeable. Never mind the thoughts he was having, Ron and lingerie was definitely not a combination Harry liked.  
  
Back out on the street, Harry’s face felt scorching hot in the winter air.  
  
“I - er - I’d better get back to work,” he mumbled.  
  
“Yeah,” said Ron, screwing his eyes up as if to wipe the image from them entirely. “I, er -”  
  
“Well, I’ll - see you …”  
  
“Right.”  
  
They looked at each other briefly. Harry wondered if they were both thinking the same thing: _I’ll see you when I’ve managed to forget this_.    
  
“Yeah.”  
  
\- - -  
  
Try as he might, the image of those delicate - er - delicates was not easily erased. For the rest of the day, Harry found his mind often drifting to visuals of Ginny clad in increasingly daring ensembles, forcing him to remain at his desk and invent various reasons why he was unable to get up.  
  
_This isn’t fair,_  he told his brain. The Ginny in his head winked and wiggled her bum.  
  
That night he dreamed of being chased by bras, amongst other things, and he spent the next morning trying to talk himself out of the decision he was inevitably coming to.  
  
He couldn’t have been very persuasive, because at lunchtime he changed into Muggle clothes again and returned to the street Ron had taken him to the day before. Summoning all his daring and nerve - he wasn’t sure chivalry came into this - he found the shop, glancing awkwardly around him before ducking into it. Keen to avoid catching the sales assistant’s eye, he made straight for the section that had drawn his attention before, the one with underwear in shades of purple. He stopped by a hanger holding a bra and knickers in a pretty plum colour. There were lacey bits on the edges and little lilac bows, and Harry could picture Ginny in them very vividly indeed. He trailed his fingers across the material, lost in a fantasy that involved removing them just as much as it did admiring them.  
  
Someone bumped into him.  
  
“Sorry,” said Harry reflexively, turning to glance at the other person. They stared at him, a half-formed apology hanging in the pregnant silence.  
  
Ron’s expression turned very quickly from ‘shock’ to ‘irate brother-in-law’.  
  
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.  
  
Harry’s mind went blank. He stared back, willing his brain to kick into gear.  
  
“I’m undercover,” he said eventually.  
  
“Undercover.”  
  
Harry swallowed. “Yep.”  
  
He could see Ron’s eyes sweeping the innocuous and entirely Muggle shop. Not for nothing had he also been an Auror.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“I saw some, er, suspicious activity yesterday,” Harry lied. “Thought I’d better come back and check it out.”  
  
“What sort of activity?” asked Ron. Harry hesitated.  
  
“I’m afraid I can’t disclose that,” he said heavily. He was quite alarmed by the speed at which Ron’s ears were rippling through shades of red, going from light pink to vermillion in a matter of seconds.  
  
“Why are _you_ here, anyway?” he asked quickly.  
  
“Research,” said Ron promptly. “We’re thinking of producing a range of, er, joke underwear for the shop. Valentine’s range, you know. I had the idea yesterday.”  
  
“Right,” said Harry, silently cursing him for coming up with a much, much better lie. “Well … I’ll leave you to your research, then.”  
  
Aware that Ron’s gaze was boring into the back of his head, he turned back to the racks as casually as he could, determinedly not looking back. Barely a second had passed before a strong hand on his shoulder pulled him back around.  
  
“You are not,” said Ron dangerously, his nostrils flaring, “buying - _that_ \- for my sister.”  
  
“What about you?” Harry argued. “Hermione’s like my sister!”  
  
“That’s completely different!”  
  
“No it’s not, I don’t want to think about you two - like _that_ \- anymore than you want to think about me and Ginny -”  
  
“I don’t give a rat’s arse, you’re not getting that for my sister in front of me!”  
  
“Fine,” said Harry flippantly, “I’ll wait until you leave, then.”  
  
Ron glowered at him. Feeling suddenly reckless - his heart was thundering as if he were on a life-threatening mission, which, potentially, he could be - Harry grabbed the plum and lilac set from the rack. He threw a challenging look at Ron, who looked apoplectic.  
  
“Excuse me,” he said indifferently, and marched off to the counter.  
  
He was half-expecting to be violently tackled and beaten to a pulp as he waited tensely behind a woman asking about student discount. He wasn’t expecting Ron to silently line up behind him, a red silky thing in his hand. Astonished, Harry stared straight ahead, willing the woman to hurry up so he could escape the most awkward situation he had ever known.  
  
“Ooh, good choice,” said the sales assistant when it was his turn, smiling at him. “Someone’s a lucky girl!”  
  
Harry was fairly certain that if he’d glanced behind him, he would have seen steam coming out of Ron’s ears. He emerged onto the street several minutes later, clutching the bag tightly in his hand, and was still there when Ron came out shortly after.  
  
They looked at each other. Then, in unspoken agreement, they turned in opposite directions and departed in silence.

**Author's Note:**

> John Lewis candles are a symbol of my affection for my dear friend Anna (ladyknightley), and so I gift this work to her in the hope that she will appreciate my sense of humour ...


End file.
